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melaniedpeony 's review for:
All the Birds in the Sky
by Charlie Jane Anders
It was a book full of interesting ideas and a lot of potential.
However, a considerable chunk of the plot happened "behind the scenes" - our understanding of much of the main conflict is supposed to come from the characters reminiscing and their reflection on past events. I think it's supposed to signify that the constant "nature-vs-technology" war is irrelevant and the only thing that matters, the only thing that can save the world is love or empathy.
Unfortunately, this writing style just comes across as lazy, especially because the author is quite happy to spend a good chunk on detailing the childhood bullying of the main characters. Which is quite harrowing to read and then it becomes quite irrelevant in the second half of the book. Sure, it cements the idea of the two main characters staying loyal to each other. But if developed a bit more, this traumatic childhood experience could have fleshed the characters out more, especially as they became "superpowered" over the course of the book. It could have given an interesting nuance to the characters, the way they could have fallen back on bad coping mechanisms, developed during childhood, as their power, their importance and their responsibilities grew.
The author also glides over the part where the main characters are supposed to fall in love, which means that the book doesn't even hold up as much of a romance. We are just supposed to believe that the two characters are madly in love, but we never see them enjoy each others' company one small bit. At first they hang out due to sheer necessity, then they are being awkward around each other then there's a time skip and suddenly they are in love. There's a bit of chemistry between the characters, sure, but it's often undermined by the fact that they are constantly being horrid to each other.
All in all, the story reads as if the author was on a deadline or had a limit to her word count and she had edited out the wrong parts of her book in a hurry to finish it.
However, the chunky style does lend a certain kind of dynamism to the book. The author has an enjoyable writing style and if you don't mind too much that you have to invent much of the plot yourself while the author just gives you a couple flashes of it and you have to string together the story from these context clues, then you will probably have a good time.
However, a considerable chunk of the plot happened "behind the scenes" - our understanding of much of the main conflict is supposed to come from the characters reminiscing and their reflection on past events. I think it's supposed to signify that the constant "nature-vs-technology" war is irrelevant and the only thing that matters, the only thing that can save the world is love or empathy.
Unfortunately, this writing style just comes across as lazy, especially because the author is quite happy to spend a good chunk on detailing the childhood bullying of the main characters. Which is quite harrowing to read and then it becomes quite irrelevant in the second half of the book. Sure, it cements the idea of the two main characters staying loyal to each other. But if developed a bit more, this traumatic childhood experience could have fleshed the characters out more, especially as they became "superpowered" over the course of the book. It could have given an interesting nuance to the characters, the way they could have fallen back on bad coping mechanisms, developed during childhood, as their power, their importance and their responsibilities grew.
All in all, the story reads as if the author was on a deadline or had a limit to her word count and she had edited out the wrong parts of her book in a hurry to finish it.
However, the chunky style does lend a certain kind of dynamism to the book. The author has an enjoyable writing style and if you don't mind too much that you have to invent much of the plot yourself while the author just gives you a couple flashes of it and you have to string together the story from these context clues, then you will probably have a good time.